THE GALAPAGOS ARCHIPELAGO. 



271 



birds bad not yet learned to escape by flight and could often be taken by the 

 hand. 



The aquatic species, gulls, stormy petrels, and two or throe others, belong 

 exclusively to the Galapagos fauna, but are nearly all distinguished from their 

 congeners of the opposite seaboard by their smaller size and duller plumage ; in 

 the latter respect they resemble the corresponding Patagonian forms. 



Of all animal-forms the turtles were formerly most numerously represented, 



Fig. 105. — Scenery in Indefatigable Island, G-alapagos Archipelago. 



as indicated by the very name of the archipelago. When tlie first navigators 

 landed they found turtles everywhere, in the arid coast districts as well as in the 

 dank thickets of the hills and plateaux. All the beaten tracks crossing the 

 brushwood had been traced nearly in a straight line by these animals moving to 

 and fro between their feeding-grounds and drinking-places in the upper glens. 

 Some weighed several hundredweights, and it took six or eight men to turn them 



